bmouse
shinypyrite
no more toxic friendships in 2018, no more toxic relationships in 2018 and no more toxic thoughts in 2018
only toxic by Britney Spears in 2018
colonel-kira-nerys
vantarinitel
rough sketch genderbend Dukat
This would have been really weird, I’m going to be honest with you. I’ve thought about it.
also if sisko were still a dude that dynamic would have been REALLY weird. if they were both ladies i think i’d actually ship it. i … i dont even know
Yep it’s Dukat, I just need this on my feed forever anyway
level9life
LPT: Sick of stupid ads that keep popping up based on your browsing? Go to a popular e-commerce website, and search “cute dog posters” and check out the items. You now get bombarded with photos of cute puppies everywhere on the internet.
cranquis
morebaffledlessbrooklyn
elodieunderglass
janeymac-ie
to be honest since I was a child I’ve just very much had a talent for story-telling. i got bullied a lot and I got terrible grades in everything but the one good note I’d get on report cards and the ONLY nice things my classmates would say when prompted would be something like “she’s so funny” or “she really paints a picture when she tells a story”
So I placed all of my self-worth in my ability to entertain people, which is the story for a LOT of kids! But I was really good at it. I always took (and still take) ordinary events and made them funny and entertaining. If I went to the store and a cashier said something odd to me, I could retell it in a way that made people laugh.
People would call me over to tell their friends “that one story” they’d heard before. I got invited to lunch tables and parties and homework groups for it. It was how I connected to people and made friends after years of being bullied.
And when you meet a lot of people, and you have a conversation with everyone you meet, something funny starts to happen: you get into a lot of weird situations and encounters that just make for more stories.
So I kept sharing, and it NEVER occurred to me that anyone would think I was lying until in 11th grade a boy said to my younger sister, who was seen as quiet, cool, and I guess thereby trustworthy “why does your sister make shit up all the time?”
And she told him “she doesn’t. I’ve been with her in half the stories she tells.”
He believed her and apologized, but when I heard about it, it really hurt me. I realized suddenly that maybe everyone I talked to, shared with, was laughing behind my back. That they thought I was a liar, desperate for friends and approval.
I had to decide not to care, but it seeded a deep insecurity in me. Sometimes I still catch myself worried my friends are secretly thinking “yeah right” when I tell them about a strange girl I talked to at the library.
I know they believe me, and I trust them, but it’s an old worry, and old worries linger!
So when my posts first started getting a lot of attention, and people started commenting “and everyone clapped,” “that man, was albert einstein,” “this is literally peak fake tumblr,” it hurt my feelings! I felt silly to have my feelings hurt by a meme. Like, I’m an adult, but it still did!
But then I started getting into watching standup comedians, and they tell the most bonkers off-the-wall stories I’ve ever heard. And people dissected them and tried to prove them fake, and then instead they’d find proof the stories were real. And in fact they’d realize, the stories weren’t really that unbelievable in the first place.
They were often about normal life with one strange element tossed in, that anyone else would have summarized in two sentences or less, and no one would have blinked.
But the comedians had made a career out of making an event funny. Making life bigger and better and more entertaining than it ever is while it’s happening.
And I realized I have that same skill.
At the end of the day, I’m just really funny, and really talented, and you can take it or leave it, that’s your choice, and that’s that on that!
There’s something quite key in this, and that’s the story shape. Finding things that are story-material, isolating them from the stream of everyday occurrences, FINDING THE STORY SHAPE, crafting a satisfying story from the shape, packaging it for easy consumption, and presenting it to others so that they get the intended effect? That is a long series of interlinked skills, which genuinely takes years to learn. Done correctly, the packaging becomes invisible, and people focus on the narrative, generating the reaction you wanted. But because people are increasingly fiction-oriented, they sometimes become suspicious when the job is done “too” well: “This packaging is crafted to a professional standard! It is similar to that used in fiction, to make stories for money!! Therefore, I don’t believe the event! You must be a fiction storyteller! Fiction is the only important story. I refuse to believe that story-shapes occur in nature, and that story-telling is a deliberately cultivated skill.”
Etc. etc.
Most of my own stories are actually incredibly mundane, and frequently happen to anyone who puts themselves in the right situations. The only difference between my stories and everyone’s constant stream of everyday life: the fact that I like to spot story shapes, cut them out of the rest of the fabric, and show them off to people.
People laugh and clap at my standup routines, they reblog my tumblr stories, and they persist in coming to dinner at my house despite the danger that I might talk to them. I have evidence that they appear to enjoy the stories. They do that because of the packaging, not because I am a person to whom weird events happen. The weird events are not interesting or enjoyable: Things Just Happen and Keep Happening to everyone, constantly, anyway. But people laugh because they like being shown a funny thing in an obviously funny light, and being invited to laugh. Not because of the series of improbable circumstances (which are actually quite mundane and highly probable - part of the packaging of a story-shaped occurrence is obscuring this.) You titer out the dramatic tension for maximum effect, and everyone goes “woo!!” at the right moment, because the buildup and release of dramatic tension is officially Enjoyable to Humans.
For example, the actual story that I relate in the Salmon Transportation Story series is an entire Tumblr post spun out of nothing in particular. A man dropped a fish in an unexpected way. It is simply presented in a format that my followers on Tumblr were prepared to appreciate in November 2017. You can tell it in such a way that it is called a “wild ride,” or you can stumble and stammer over it in a confusing manner, or you can write it up for a scientific paper, or you can just ignore it. Every discrete event that subverts expectations can be turned into this exact kind of story, and there are three standard off-the-shelf packages that you can wrap around it to make people laugh. To make the exact same kind of story as this one, just look for an event that subverted your initial expectations for how it was going to go, and try fitting it into the same narrative arc.
It’s a good skill to identify things that are story-shaped and how storytellers construct and deploy them. It’s an even better skill to admire the craft and mechanism of the construction, seeing how an event can be spun up into a Story. This will be absolutely key for your survival as a citizen, in a time when nations are entirely directed by stories, many of them fictional, and power is awarded to the person who is best at story-construction, and news travels - not because of its importance - but because of its packaging. This is called rhetoric, and it is the art of the discourse; it is a genuine field of study, and the reason it is so powerful and insidious is partly because it is practically invisible.
bluering8
unrepentantauthor
Tyrannosaurus was not the most dangerous animal in the park. Having imprinted on its handler since infancy, the creature maintained a docile temperament all the way to adulthood, and indeed seemed to prefer feeding from its designated trough to pursuing prey. Its interactions with staff and guests showed at most a mild curiosity, and the only real terror the beast inspired was when it snuck up on trainers to sniff their hats.
The raptors were not the most dangerous animals in the park. Hollywood had greatly exaggerated their size, first of all, and while they had a mischievous streak (one individual in particular was fond of stealin zookeepers’ wallets), they were far from the hyper-intelligent murder lizards everyone expected. Their intelligence was less of the predatory sort and more the comical intelligence of a corvid, devoted mostly to play and caring for their fellow flock members.
The mosasaur was not the most dangerous animal in the park. Though it held no loyalty to the zookeepers, it had taken to training well enough, and would dutifully move to a specific section of the tank when signaled, giving the keepers space to carry out any business they needed to accomplish in its tank without fear of harm.
No, by far the most dangerous animal in the park was the Struthiomimus. Everyone expected it to be easy - what were these animals in pop culture beyond being fodder for the carnivores? Surely the bird-mimics couldn’t be much of a hassle. Sadly, they weren’t just any bird mimics.
No, in temperament, the Struthiomimus mimicked a swan.
Highly territorial and vicious to the bone, more keepers had suffering brutal beatings by the struthis than had been hurt by the rest of the park’s fauna combined. And when they learned to chew through the fences…
Well, let’s just say the Tyrannosaurus never experienced a more terrifying day in her life.
This is my new favorite story.
ascientistknits
themushroomtree
Today I found out that yarners think crocheting socks is subversive and controversial and I just…on one hand, why the fuck not, I guess yarners are allowed to have their controversies, but on the other, how much time do you have in your FUCKIN DAY??
My main concern is how they would feel but Maggie u know yarn fandom gotta think about something while knitting five miles of stockingnette for a sweater
Look, you can’t just leave it at that, why is it subversive and controversial? *gets popcorn*
I mean, I’m taking this on good faith, and I’m not saying this is my own personal belief. I believe in all crafts.
But…the structure of the stitches and the resulting fabric is pretty different between crochet and knitting. You get different effects between them, which lends themselves to different crafts. And none of the effects of (most) crochet stitches lend themselves naturally to socks. You’re (usually) going to end up with something either stiff and bulky, or full of holes that will Not Feel Good to walk on. Whereas knitted socks will just…BE elastic and comfortable.
Sure you CAN do it. And there are people and patterns that do it well!!
But MOST crochet socks are a bit like calling this a bicycle
I mean… Okay? But people are going to Talk.
But this is BABY controversy, this is nothing. You haven’t even touched on the good shit like RHSS or that time the Olympic Committee dissed us.
Iiiinteresting. So one of those “just because you CAN doesn’t mean you SHOULD” things.
Also I know very little about the yarn fandom except for that bit where a woman had to fake her death and had a nervous breakdown over selling homespun/dyed yarn so like, I already have big expectations.
Was that the one that “died” of leukemia or the one that “died” of lupus, or the one that overdosed?
From what I know of the narrative as it was described to me, I want to say the one that overdosed, but I am intrigued and vaguely concerned that there are multiple distinct individuals the above situation could apply to.
the fake deaths thing: indie yarn dyer gets popular, gets overwhelmed by orders, can’t refund money because of shitty bookkeeping, decides faking online death is the only way out.
i’m sure some of them are unintentional rather than premeditated scammers but they’re all still thieving assholes who shouldn’t be running businesses and need to give all the money back.
the olympics commitee: ravelry, well-known knitting (fiber arts in general) site, held a contest they called the ‘ravelympics’ to drum up olympic support then get a cease-and-desist letter for copyright infringement, and the letter said that calling it that ‘denigrates the true nature of the Olympic Games’ and was ‘disrespectful to our country’s finest athletes’
except, you know, ravelry had like 2 million users who all, by nature of ravelry being a website, have basic tech literacy. the social media backlash was so bad that the olympics board had to make 2 official apologies because the first wasn’t good enough.
RHSS: Red Heart Super Saver is cheap Walmart-level yarn. some people hate it because it used to be just really fucking awful and they haven’t bothered updating their opinions. some people hate it because they hate non-natural yarns. some people hate it because they’re yarn snobs(which, btw, comes in two flavors: the disdainful assholes and the people who just don’t see the point if you have the money and don’t indulge yourself). a lot of people defend it because it’s cheap and widely locally available and honestly not that bad after a wash and some fabric softener.
crocheted socks: exactly what kaitoukitty said. people who crochet socks tend to either be new crocheters who are not aware crochet is not the best medium for socks or experienced crocheters who are pushing the boundaries of the medium.
babies on fire: i can’t believe we’re talking about yarncraft controversies and no one mentioned babies on fire. that’s my favorite controversy.
so when deciding what material to make baby blankets out of, in addition to considerations like softness, ease of washing, and allergy concerns quite a lot of people like to consider what would happen to the baby if the blanket was set on fire. yes, really.
wool has the problem of hand-wash only blankets for a new mother (superwash wool exists but that’s a whole ‘nother paragraph), allergy concerns, and also
real fucking expensive if you want quality not-itchy-on-baby-skin wool. but pro-wool-blanket people insist that because wool actually resists being set on fire pretty well and also can self-extinguish, it’s the only sensible choice.
acrylic on the other hand is cheap and you can throw it in the washing machine, and while bad quality acrylics might be stiff and plastic-y they’re not itchy, but if it gets set on fire it will melt onto the baby’s skin. pro-acrylic people insist that if your blanket is on fire, you probably have bigger problems than what the blanket is made of.
wow I didn’t expect such a detailed response. thank you!
Fiber Arts Just Be Fucking Like That.
Every single interest a human could possibly have has a clique developed around it. There’s yarn snobs, sewing machine snobs, beer snobs, cloth diaper snobs, camera snobs, coffee snobs, pet snobs….the list goes on and on. Basically, most people are tremendously insecure and have been subconsciously taught that the only way to bolster oneself is to exclude and drag others. Do what you want. You like that cheap yarn? Go on and use it. Wanna make crochet socks (because you can’t knit or for literally any other reason including you just want to)? Go for it, it’s been done, Ravelry has some cute patterns that work really well. If you like something, especially if it fosters your creative drive, don’t you DARE let snooty assholes ruin it.
P.S. I’ve tried a lot of the things people insist are Your Only Good Option and 9 times out of 10 I’m not impressed. Sometimes the hype completely supersedes the Malabrigo yarn, the Featherweight sewing machine, the Goodmama diaper, etc. etc.
ascientistknits
knicromaniac
“As long as there has been knitting there have been battles about it. There are self-declared “yarn snobs,” who frown on using anything but natural fibers; “gauge snobs”, who wouldn’t be caught dead with chunky yarn; and “experience snobs”, who claim you can’t declare yourself a real knitter until you abandon novelty yarns. The truth is that the knitting world is a tiny metaphor for the real world. It takes all kinds. I will not allow myself to feel bad if someone disapproves of my knitting. I will also resist the urge to stuff his mailbox full of chunky acrylic fun fur at 3:00 am.”
— stephanie pearl-mcphee, “at knits end: meditations for women who knit too much”
ladyyatexel
“Good night love i am color<” was the last thing i said to my poor girlfriend before the Ambien got me
borgcast
t00thpasteface
